Author: Tony

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Back in session

The new school year is in full swing now. I’m teaching a computer science class this year which is a lot of fun. I don’t know anything about teaching, but that’s OK because the students don’t know anything about programming. I think I’m learning just as much as they are.

The only downside to the class is the time: 12:00 – 1:00. I miss coming home for lunch every day. I’ve been eating lunch in the high school cafeteria from 11:30 – 12:00 this week. That’s “A” lunch for those who care. It certainly brings back some memories:

I stood in line for about 29 minutes one day just to get one of those terrible, rectangular pieces of pizza. Just as I sat down to inhale it, a fight broke out right across the table from me. One guy grabbed the other guy and threw him on the table, you guessed it, right on top of my pizza. I carried my tray back to the lunch lady and she gave me another pizza. I ate it as the bell rang and everybody else walked out.

Our work order list is finally back down to about 5 pages and most of the major projects are taken care of. I actually took last weekend off from work. Prior to that I think I worked 21 days straight. Hopefully now that things are settling down I can back into the routine of updating this site. I’ve got tons of pictures and stuff to put up here.

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Not dead, just busy

I’ve realized that no matter how long I leave this site alone, it will never update itself.

That’s the next project I’m going to work on: Weblog software that generates and posts random updates every few days. I’ll be richer than Bill.

Anyway, school starts Monday. I guess I should start preparing for the class I’m teaching…

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Free iPod

I’ve seen this mentioned on several other weblogs. There are lots of reports that this actually works. So, I’m taking the plunge and trying it out for myself. Here’s what you do: Go to freeiPods.com, sign up for an account, complete an offer, then get five other people to each complete an offer. After that, they’ll send you a free iPod.

This is obviously some kind of pyramid scheme, but what the heck. Some people have actually received free iPods from this site, so I might as well try it. I’ve invited a few people to sign up for this and help me get an iPod. If I didn’t think of you when I was filling out the form, you can sign up as a friend of mine by going to this link – http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=7271022

The offers are things like signing up for an AOL account, joining the DVD club, etc. I think the best one is the eBay account. All you have to do is sign up for an account and bid on one item. I used my e-mail address from work and then bid $1 on a new iPod. There’s no way I’ll win it, but the only requirement to complete the offer is one bid. So that should be it.

I’ll post updates here so everyone can see how this works out…

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Two Weeks

What happened to this place? It’s been over two weeks since I put anything up here.

It’s strange because lots of things have been happening lately, but I just haven’t bothered to post anything about it on the site. Some stuff I can talk about (like our trip to Hot Springs, the fact that Geoff is in Germany right now, or the 80 foot trench we dug in the backyard), and other things I can’t talk about (like… nevermind).

I’m finally starting to get caught up at work and I think we’re through with our backyard for a while, so hopefully I can get back to my usual schedule of almost daily updates. I’ll also say that I’m tired of the political stuff. I think it’s time for more pictures of family and friends. And, of course, some full on geeky posts.

Check back soon. Thinks should start to get interesting again…

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More Gmail

I guess this is kind of a continuation of yesterday’s post… I have one invitation to Gmail to give away. So, if you read this site and you’d like a free, 1 GB e-mail account, then either e-mail me or post a comment below.

This would be perfect for someone with a silly Yahoo.com account, like for example progrock_nutball. Let me know if you’re interested.

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Gee Mail

Scrivs over at Forever Geek is giving out an invitation to GMail to anyone who links to his site. Since I visit the site daily and enjoy the content. I’d be glad to link to it.

If you’re at least a little bit geeky, you’ll probably enjoy his site. He covers news on several different topics like Gadgets, Programming, and Open Source. Lately, he’s been reviewing a lot of Anime. I haven’t watched much anime since Robotech (back then we still called it Japanimation), but some of the new stuff looks interesting.

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At least they didn’t say “hackers”

Here’s a bit of a warning for all of you Internet Explorer users out there. CNET News has an article up right now called Researchers warn of infectious Web sites. In it, they discuss two flaws in Internet Explorer that could let someone take over your computer. The difference this time is that you can get infected just by browsing the web. Here’s the meat of the article:

…online organized crime groups are breaking into Web servers and surreptitiously inserting code that takes advantage of two flaws in Internet Explorer that Microsoft has not yet fixed. Those flaws allow the Web server to install a program that takes control of the user’s computer.

And in case you’re wondering why your computer is running so slow and you’re getting so many popups, this article addresses that, too:

Earlier this month, an independent security researcher found an aggressive advertising program, known as adware, that installed itself onto a victim’s computer via the same two flaws in Internet Explorer.

Nice. At this point you’re saying to yourself “It’s OK, I have antivirus software!”

The group also pointed out that the malicious program uploaded to a victim’s computer is not currently detected as a virus by most antivirus software.

Ouch. So what’s my advice? Simple, don’t use Internet Explorer. Go to http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ and install Firefox.

Firefox is the best web browser I’ve ever used. It’s a great way to avoid all of the flaws in Internet Explorer and at the same time introduce yourself to some open-source software.

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Remember This Date

History was made today.

Scaled Composites became the first private company to launch a manned craft into space this morning. Mike Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne 62 miles above the Earth’s surface to the edge of space.

He experienced three minutes of weightlessness. While weightless he opened a bag of M&M’s and watched them float around the cockpit.

After that, he landed successfully back where he started in the Mojave desert.

You can get all of the details in this CNN.com article.

Things like this restore my faith in humanity.

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Idiots

According to this CNN.com poll, over 30% of the people in the US are idiots who will believe what ever they’re told. I didn’t believe it myself, but these numbers don’t lie. Click this image to see for yourself:

Idiots

What makes this even more interesting are the other stories involved. On the one hand we have the report from the 9/11 commission. Here’s a quote from their report:

The panel said it found “no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.”

Then we have the words of the Bush administration:

President Bush repeated his administration’s claim that Iraq was in league with al Qaeda under Saddam Hussein’s rule…

At this point, I would have a lot more respect for the President if he would just own up to it. Sometimes you just have to say “Sorry, I messed up.” But I don’t think Bush is that kind of person. I think he’ll stand by his original statement no matter what.

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The Fruits of Our Labor

There’s something very rewarding about growing your own food.

We started off by growing our own herbs. But I don’t think herbs really count as food. After all, an herb is basically just a weed. You can snip off a few leaves occasionally to use while cooking, but you can’t exactly make a meal of it.

Last year we planted a tomato plant, but it never produced any fruit. I remember seeing a few blooms on it, but shortly after they appeared a storm came through. The storm either blew or washed all of the blooms off the plant. Therefore, we grew no tomatoes last year.

Undaunted by last year’s failure, we bought two plants this spring and put them in containers on our front porch. Our plants fared much better this year. Each one had countless blooms followed by 10-20 tiny little tomatoes. Finally, the tomatoes have begun to ripen. Here’s a picture of the very first tomato that we picked:

Tomato

Yes, it tasted as good as it looks. So far we’ve picked about 10 tomatoes from our two little plants, and there are plenty more still growing. If we keep this up we might just have to become farmers.